Follow Me, Follow You
by ConcreteAngelRoxHerHalo
Summary: She is her sister's keeper, and he's not quite ready to lose her. AU One-Shot. Warning: mentions of leukemia and violent situations.


She was never the favorite sister. That was always Azelma, the same one who ended up being doomed by birth. Éponine was the eldest, and her only blessing was a healthy body. When the donations began, Éponine was sixteen and ugly as hell, not to mention deliberately fattened for Azelma's sake.

She met Enjolras at the age of seventeen, when her parents took things a step too far- she was _not_ going to give up her last kidney (she already gave one, for God's sake) to her sister; no matter how much she loved Azelma, there was a limit to how far she was willing to go. Surely there were other donors who could give a fifteen year old, cancer-ridden girl a single kidney.

Éponine sat uncomfortably in the office of a well-known lawyer,  
Tholomyès. All around her, she could feel the stares coming towards her (she was fairly sure that she didn't have to give up half of what she did to her sister- Azelma's hair left and didn't return after the first round of chemotherapy, and Éponine's mother cut her hair in her sleep and gave it to a wig maker. Her forearms were so used to being pricked with needles for blood transfusions that she looked like a heroin addict). Éponine uncomfortably ran her hand through her short hair and waited.

A young man came out of the lawyer's office, looking clean and fresh and all put-together (a goal that Éponine hoped to accomplish one day). Despite his cold and holier-than-though aura, he looked at her as if she was an ordinary client.

"How may I help you?"

"Are you Tholomyès?" She asked. The young man shook his head (god, how was it possible for someone's hair to be _that_ blond?).

"I'm his intern, Enjolras. Honestly, I do most of the work. What can I do for you?"

"Medical emancipation." She said. He nodded slowly and tucked the clipboard he was carrying under his arm.

Enjolras pulled a rolling chair from a nearby cubicle and sat with his legs straddling the back like all guys tended to do. She raised an eyebrow. They were actually doing this, there, in the middle of a busy office.

"Sorry," He apologized. "I don't really have my own space, being an intern and such."

"It's... fine." She said, slowly. "So how does this work? Do I.. Fine? Go to court?"

"Well, how old are you?" He asked. She chewed her lip, running the different lies she could tell. If she went younger, the sympathy card might play better. If she went older, emancipation would he a hell of a lot easier to achieve. She looked up and his blue eyes (how can something be that blue _ever_? Is this man real?) were looking into hers intensely and she didn't have the heart to lie.

"Seventeen." She told him. He nodded slowly.

"It will be difficult, but I think we can do it. Are you on bored?" He held out a smooth-looking hand and she reached for it hesitatedly. One shake, one shake that changed both of their lives.

* * *

"I have a brother, you know." She told him one day, when they were pouring over the many medical procedures that her parents had forced her to go through for Azelma's sake- according to Enjolras, half of them were illegal to perform on a minor, affecting both Éponine and Azelma.

"Do you?" Enjolras was only half listening, so Éponine took that as an invitation to continue talking.

"Yeah. His name's Gavroche and he's twelve. I don't think he even comes home at night anymore." At this, Éponine caught Enjolras's attention. "My parents… They could care less about him. Azelma is their only _real_- or, _important_- child. I'm just supposed to help her. Last time I saw him…" She shuddered as if repulsed by the memory- she didn't agree with her brother's way of dealing with things, but she couldn't blame him at all. It wasn't so much disgust that made her cringe- it was remembering the good times, back when he was young and sweet and Azelma hadn't been diagnosed.

"How long ago?" Enjolras asked, pulling her to reality. (reality was a littered desk in a library study room, where the two of them were sitting far too close and yet too far)

"A few weeks. He was high, and running from a fire. I'm pretty sure he set it." Her eyes widened and she clasped a hand over her mouth. "Shit. I forgot you're a lawyer."

Enjolras rolled his eyes. "I'm an intern at a shitty law firm, not a police officer."

"You've got the composure for it."

"Shut up."

They were good for each other, Enjolras and Éponine. She gave him a rougher edge that before was pure ice and slicing words. She scratched that surface till he bled ichor- she made him feel and blush and express things he never thought he could. As for him, he made her smarter. It was something about being in a room with him that accelerated her brain (also her pulse, but that was something that she would rather keep to herself).

* * *

The trial wasn't yet confirmed, and her parents were clueless. She probably should have warned them that she was bringing legal charges and trying to free herself from their grasps, but she didn't. So, there was no help from the school when her father picked her up and dragged her to the hospital, where she gave Azelma four pints of blood.

Thernardier left without his eldest daughter.

She stumbled from the hospital all alone. Somewhere in the back of her brain, she wondered why no one stopped her. Éponine's vision was swimming in front of her eyes, and it was by pure luck that her rubbery legs didn't lead her into the oncoming stream of traffic. Somewhere in her delusional brain, she knew where to go.

She collapsed before even knocking on Enjolras's door, but the sound of her body falling was loud enough to alert Enjolras. The last thing she saw before blacking out was Enjolras's panic and his hands reaching for her- stupid kid, you can't catch smoke.

He carried her into his flat, modest but better than Éponine is used to (that closet that she and Gavroche share could hardly be considered a room). He was worried about her, constantly holding a pulse point to make sure that she was still with him—everything was so much more than the case at that point. _She_ was so much more.

She was pale and her dark hair came around her heart-shaped face like a frame that barely touched her shoulders. Her closed eyes twitched incessantly and he felt the need to soothe her- she was always worried, always moving. She needed to stop just for a moment.

It was then that he realized that he had fallen in love with his first client, Éponine Thernardier.

* * *

Enjolras was barely holding back from jumping from the stands and strangling his boss. Really, Tholomyès showed up to the trial hung-over and covered in hickeys. Not only that, but he completely bypassed Enjolras's meticulous outline for examination and cross-examination.

Éponine looked over the bench at him when court adjourned. They would return tomorrow to hear the verdict. He tried to smile, but found that he could not. A shadow crossed over him and he sensed Éponine bending in front of him. A pair of small fingers found his chin and lifted it, and he was looking at her hopeless eyes and beautiful freckles and he lost it.

"I-I-I have to go." He stuttered and left her crouching there, lost and hurt. Enjolras was the only kind constant in her life- she couldn't lose that, no matter how much he wanted to. She did the thing she'd never done to those who left. She chased after him.

The rain was pouring from the rooftops and down Éponine's hair and collecting in her cheap shoes (why buy nice ones for a daughter who's bound to be a sacrifice for another to live?). She ran through torrents until she got close enough, at which point she almost leisurely walked up the stairwell to his flat.

She found herself again at his door, where she pounded angrily until he opened. The door pulled away from her fist mid-knock, and she was faced with an annoyed and equally wet Enjolras.

"What. The. _Hell_. Was. That?" She spat. Her fist pounded on his chest- _God_ he was firm- where it had previously hit his door.

"Ow, _ow_, Éponine, that _hurts_." He protested half-heartedly, still in shock that she came after him.

"You left me all alone, Enjolras." Tears were threatening to fall, and he never wanted to hurt her like this. "Why?"

He grabbed her wrist mid-hit and suddenly she was being pulled towards him and their lips crashed together- it felt like lightening striking water and the electricity nearly killed them. It would, eventually, but at that moment it was perfect.

He disregarded all laws as he just barely managed to carry her to his bedroom, where he laid her on his too-neat bed and looked at her body, wet clothes clinging to skin. He kissed her sweetly, once more, and together they peeled off wet fabric until they were skin to skin and she was _perfect_, every scar, every missing organ, he loved all of her that there was to love.

Sweat replaced rain and his golden curls were all she knew or could think to know as her hands yanked them or curls in another place on his body brushed her wet skin. They were all moans and sighs and an electrical storm with the cadence of wind through grass.

He fell asleep with her cradled closely to him and the uneven ends of her hair sticking against his chest. And he could get used to that.

* * *

They did it. Somehow they won the trial, with Azelma in tears of happiness that _one_ Thernardier girl would live and the Mister and Missus in tears for a completely different reason. Tholomyès looked like he could care less, while Éponine ran into the audience and threw herself into Enjolras's arms. When they parted he swore he'd never seen her eyes so full of happiness. She grabbed his tie and pulled him down to her.

There were catcalls and a few 'Isn't she underage?'s, but they ignored them. Enjolras cupped her face in his hands. She wasn't going to get taken from him (not yet). Éponine's beam was contagious, and she teased him for the smile that stuck on his face as they ran through the still-slick streets and to his car.

She climbed in the passenger side eagerly and practically bounced in her seat. Enjolras chuckled and reached over her to pull the seatbelt over her body.

"We didn't just save your life for nothing."

It was almost as if he said the wrong thing. Éponine stiffened in her seat and was silent as he backed out of the crowded parking lot of the courtroom. It was only at the first stoplight that he realized she was crying.

"Hey, hey," He reached for her hand and felt encouraged when she squeezed it. "Don't cry," He smiled crookedly when she looked up at him. "You're free."

"My parents were going to willingly _kill_ me, Enjolras." It was as if that thought had only just crossed her mind. "My _parents_."

"They won't touch you again, I promise." He brought their entwined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Her face lightened until suddenly there was pure panic and she wrenched away and pointed at something behind him.

The truck hit them full on.

* * *

"Do whatever you can!" Enjolras begged, trying not to look at how small she was on the bed. "Take _anything_ you have to from me! Please! TAKE EVERYTHING, because I am nothing when she's not here."

* * *

"Azelma… You got your kidney?" Éponine was tired, but Azelma was on the bed next to her and the two sisters were holding hands over the space between them.

"I don't know who gave me it… Apparently the same guy who gave you what you needed." Azelma smiled while Éponine paled.

Enjolras's voice echoed through her head. "TAKE EVERYTHING"

She clutched Azelma's hand like a lifetime and sobbed, wondering briefly if the heart inside of her was even her own. Enjolras left her alone, again, and this time she couldn't chase after him.

* * *

"Éponine Thernardier, time of death, 2:46.1."

"What went wrong?"

"I don't know, she just… died."

A nonsensical murmuring came from the pathetic young girl next to the bed of the deceased. "She found a way to follow him."

* * *

**This was supposed to be a different version of "My Sister's Keeper", so... Yeah. Everything I got was from the wiki for the novel, so if I messed up (some things were deliberately changed), sorry!**


End file.
